Boldcussion

Monkey Mind

Image from Canva

“I have to empty the dishes”,

“Need to take the rubbish out”,

“I keep doing the work around here, there is no support”,

“If I keep pestering him, he will think I am nagging him”,

“I might just do it myself”,

“What am I making for dinner?”

ENDLESS THOUGHTS!

We approximately have 66,000 thoughts in a day, with an estimate of 15,000 of them are on repeat and 6,000 are negative at that. The mind processes these thoughts day in day out, and they dominate your mind while you are performing physical activities. This happens when we undergo problems, and we internalise and try to have a better grasp in the situations, that turns into a loop and leaves one with a sense of being trapped.

A term used for the mind chatter is the Monkey Mind. I for one have a monkey mind and when it takes center stage, I realised that my body reacted in an uncomfortable way. Hence, I became aware of the signs hitting me smack bang in the face. Some of which are; I began to feel impatient and irritated; my thoughts were scattered all over the place and it was becoming difficult to concentrate as my mind kept wandering often. Feeling anxious and unsettled became normal, I would wake up in the middle of the night, breaking into a sweat, breathing unevenly and in some cases I felt suffocated and as well as being mentally tired.

There are various aspects that lead to a monkey mind, one of the main culprits is conditioning, from a very young age you are conditioned to be someone, behave in a certain way as the society deems fit, becoming social slaves. The little voices in our heads trigger self-doubt, lowers the confidence levels ending up with low self-esteem that amplifies having the imposter syndrome.

The internet, as beneficial as it is, also has a negative impact on many lives, especially with the various social media platforms where everyone is talking about how wonderful their life is when in reality it is a show put up by many to make themselves feel better. It brings about inferiority complex in others and brings about a competitive nature in themselves.

Personalising the flaws, if something goes wrong, many place the blame on themselves, thinking something is wrong with them, for instance when you make a point amongst a group of friends, and no one responds, then you start feeling horrible about yourself and place the blame on yourself for making others uncomfortable.

Overlooking all the positive achievements, many pay attention and heighten the events that have gone wrong. Instead of beating yourself for a genuine mistake and failure, look at all that you have accomplished also known as filtering.

Being a perfectionist is the only way, otherwise you perceive yourself as a failure, there is no middle ground. A very good example is when you are creating content for social media, and you take ages to make it perfect and this causes a delay in showcasing your talent. Then kicks in the feeling of being a failure and not being good enough, polarizing the situation takes out all the joy in life. And then there is always expecting the worse to happen, catastrophizing incidents and feeling overwhelmed about the whole situation.

How can one reduce the monkey mind from taking over your life?

Try Meditation, this helps with silencing the mind, enables you to concentrate.
Yoga, my personal favourite, meditation has been a struggle for me, so I turned to yoga, this is a form of movement meditation.
Exercise allows me to release dopamine the happy hormone and it makes me feel better about myself.
Spending time in nature, I love spending a lot of time at the beach, either swimming or just relaxing to the sound of waves.
Look into getting creative or learn something new, or a skill.

Kiran Kaur

*** Dear Reader,

The topics I write about are not for the faint hearted, I write from the depth of my heart and this is my way of expressing myself. And I will under no circumstances apologise for my views.